Last Days

Filmmaker Gus Van Sant wrote and directed this meditation on stardom and its costs, inspired in part by the life and death of rock musician Kurt Cobain. Blake (Michael Pitt) is the leader of an influential alternative rock band who has unexpectedly won a large degree of fame and fortune. Depressed ...more

Gus Van Sant's well-made Last Days has one insurmountable fault: it feels entirely unnecessary. The main problem is that the director has chosen to evoke the memory of Kurt Cobain so directly that it will be the only way for the vast majority of viewers to approach the film. While Michael Pitt offers a sparse, mumbling performance that captures the depression of the main character, the director is unable to make the character particularly meaningful. In Van Sant's previous film, the ...more